My buddy has a Blacktail from up there from when he was in the coast guard. I told him it was small compared to the ones you had posted pics.
Thankyou! To build a respectable collection of fair chase big mature trophy Blacktial takes time! Lots and Lots of Time! And hard work. I didn't even squeeze a trigger this year as far as taking a big mature Blacktial. It took me over 20 years to build my top ten Blacktial collection with two in the ten that are annual awards B&C. (100" net score)I've yet to harvest an All Time B&C. (108" net score) One day it will happen! Or at least the opportunity will happen!
B&C animas are a lot harder to find than many people realize! Not every Blacktial is destined to reach 100" let alone All Time B&C. 108" net score. Same can be said about not all fair chase naturally wild Whitetail are destined to reach 150"-160" let alone All Time B&C 170"
Genetics play a huge part!
This is a friend of mines. It is in the top ten World Records fir Sitka Blacktial. 124" gross score.118" net.
This is one of my top ten personal records. Not my biggest, but in my top ten. It gross scores 99" 96.5" after deductions. Pictures don't do justice, but my friends is over two inches wider and all points on his rack are much longer. probably by about two inches and his rack is much heavier!
This is my rack in my top ten with the least amount of mass, but better as far as tine length. I took this animal on Afognak Island during a commercial cod fishing season. We were on anchor in Izhut Bay because it was to nasty of weather to fish offshore where our gear was. Skipper said "bring a hunting rifle this trip boys! may have some weather to wait on." Took a small Zodiac to shore Hiked a four mile loop through the woods and didn't see a thing until I got back to the beach. About 100yrds from the raft this young four year old buck stood up from his bed and gave me a broad side shot at 50 yards! Shooting off hand with my Sako 06, I missed the first shot from breathing hard from the hike, buck feaver, and excitement and disbelief that that he was right off the beach not far from the raft! He actually just stood there and gave me another off hand shot. I don't think he'd ever seen a person before. Im most certain If he'd lived to be six hed have gone All Time B&C. It was early December 2000. Once we got fishing again I put his skull in a cod pot fir two picks and the entire skull was as clean as a whistle by the second pick! Sand fleas cleaned it up down to shiny bone better than any flesh Beatle or boiling could ever do!
This is my heaviest Blacktial in my top ten, but also the narrowest spread. However, the biggest spread between eye guards (G-1 points) The antler mass and bases on this beautiful animal are world record class! Even bigger than my buddies up top
Unfortunately all he has is mass. No spread or tine length to speak of. He was an old Buck! 98" gross score. 92" after deductions. Most his score is in mass (circumference) measurements! Although not my biggest in my top ten, He is my favorite as I Kayaked across 10 miles of Open Ocean exposed to the Alaskan Gulf to get the the grounds I hunted this Stud. Not protected waters! three and a half hours of padding hard in an eight to ten foot ground swell and ebbing cross current. (The red line marks the route.) Green X marks camp.
I'll tell you guys about the bar crossing in and out of the lagoon some other time as that is a story in itself, but fir now I'll just say no room fir error, I was sweating bullets
and had only one chance at it! No turning a 22 foot Kayak with a six hundred pound gross load around fir a second go across that bar entrance once the first set of breakers is behind you! That big Sled has about a 75 foot turning radius and takes almost a minute to come about. Needless to say. She was designed fir straight tracking in big open ocean swells. Not surfing the Banzai pipeline in Hawaii!
Then I got stuck on the beach fir five days in a Northeast 50 knot storm coming in straight off the Gulf. Winds reaching hurricane levels excessive of 70 knots sustained! Freezing sand blasting sideways rain made for long days and nights in a tent that tested my wits as well as my sanity! As I was solo in the remote Alaskan Kodiak Island wilderness without anyone aware of my location! No room fir error or foul decision making and no reliable communications. I was most definitely at the mercy of only my gear and local knowledge! A lot to be said about a good high quality tent! I cant stress that enough! I had to hike 2000 vertical feet every morning to get a marine wether forecast on my hand held VHF radio.
I couldn't paddle back if I wanted to. Probably a thirty foot breaking sea during that five day winter storm and the Witch of November came slash'n!
Im not exaggerating this hunting story one bit! That was in 2008. I remember it like it was yesterday!
Good stuff! I finally got a twelve hour weather window. basically one flood and one ebb of two in a 24 hr period. I loaded up my 400 lb camp and pointed the bow of my 22 foot ocean going SEDA North by Northeast. She tracked true, stable, and steady as she made way while I paddled the ten mile crossing back tracking the course I had originally traveled. Winds were calm and variable with a 15 foot gentle ground swell and with a well earned fair chase trophy Blacktial rack secured to the bow of my Kayak! As I approached Passagshak point entering the safe haven of Passagshak bay. I looked behind me across the bigger and strong tide influenced Ugak Bay. Skys were becoming grey and gloomy and white caps were already starting to build in another face of a winter storm East wind! Twas the Witch of November come stealing!